Todd Akin More in Sync with G.O.P. Platform Committee Than Party’s Own Nominee

More rape/incest/abortion news on this Tuesday afternoon: the Republican Party platform committee has “approved platform language on Tuesday calling for a constitutional amendment outlawing abortion with no explicit exceptions for cases of rape or incest,” The New York Times reports. Such a stance is “similar to the planks Republicans have included in their recent party platforms, which also called for a constitutional ban on abortions.” Mitt Romney, the party’s nominee, does not agree with this. Paul Ryan, the lawmaker Mitt Romney selected to lead the country in the event that he himself, as president, becomes indisposed, does agree with this. Put your hand down, Todd Akin, we all know whether you agree.

The entirety of the platform, which won’t be set in stone tablets until next week, is an impossible-to-put-down thriller on the self-immolation of the party’s 2012 hopes. Alienate social moderates at the precise time when everyone is paying attention? Check! Who’s next? The elderly and the people who love them? [Maniacal laughter.] “The Republican platform committee will take up Medicare language Tuesday afternoon that would officially commit the party to the kind of overhaul championed by Paul Ryan, including turning it into a voucher-like program and raising the retirement age,” Politico reports.

As Reince Priebus, R.N.C. chairman and anagram for something, told MSNBC today: “This is the platform of the Republican Party; it’s not the platform of Mitt Romney.” The platform of Mitt Romney—a blinking Microsoft Word curser and JavaScript word-count tool—is starting to look savvy by comparison.